Deroy Murdock: Trump spent his first year making America great again

ARE YOU BETTER OFF now than you were one year ago? President Donald J. Trump and other Republicans should ask voters this exact question. Their answers should buoy GOP prospects for November’s midterm elections.

Saturday marks one year since President Trump’s inauguration. Since Jan. 20, 2017, Trump and the GOP Congress have mopped up much of the previous management’s mess. Obama’s hectoring, anti-business tone has been hushed. His class warfare, “global-warming” fetish, and lead-from-behindism are neutralized. Some 1,500 absurd and intrusive regulations have been junked. And Obama’s taxaholism has been replaced with the deepest tax cuts since 1981.

These Trump/GOP reforms have overdelivered on all expectations. As President Trump said Thursday in Pennsylvania: “The good news keeps pouring in.”

Since Trump replaced Obama, GDP growth has climbed from 2.1 percent to 3.2, a 52.4 percent acceleration in output.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average has soared from 19,827 to 26,017 on Thursday, up 31.2 percent. This is splendid news for the 54 percent of Americans who own stocks, including retirement-account owners.

The number of Americans employed has increased 1.8 million, up 1.2 percent.

Unemployment has fallen from 4.7 percent to 4.1, down 12.8 percent to the lowest rate since 2001.

The home-ownership rate has risen from 63.7 percent to 63.9. The Consumer Confidence Index has advanced from 113.7 to 122.1.

Democrats achieved nothing last year. They are visionless and idea-free, other than to “Resist!” Trump. Meanwhile, the left’s serial anti-Trump narratives have imploded, one after another:

Trump is a Kremlin puppet! After digging for 18 months, the FBI and Robert Mueller have unearthed zero evidence that Trump colluded with Moscow. Meanwhile, Trump has yanked Vladimir Putin’s chain far more than Putin has pulled Trump’s strings. Sending offensive weapons to Ukraine, which might aim them at Russian troops, is hardly the behavior of Moscow’s marionette.

Trump’s tax cut won’t help the middle class! Each and every congressional Democrat battled the tax-cut that has unleashed rampant economic growth. Since the tax cut kicked in, Americans for Tax Reform calculates at least 190 companies have reported paying their workers bonuses of up to $3,000, boosting their pension deposits, and hiking base hourly wages up to and beyond $15. Some 2.2 million employees are savoring these $1 billion-plus in benefits.

Trump is a racist! His alleged remark about El Salvador, Haiti, and certain African states — reported by Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., now is disputed by Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and GOP senators Tom Cotton and David Perdue.

The Donald J. Trump Foundation gave the University of Utah’s Moran Eye Center $10,000 to support Sen. Rand Paul free cataract surgeries for poor Guatemalans in 2014. Trump personally donated another $10,000 for a similar trip to treat some 200 vision-impaired Haitians in 2015.

Democrat Andrew Stein, former New York City Council president, gathered medical supplies after a 1980 storm slammed Haiti. But he needed a plane to deliver the aid. “I called Donald Trump. One-two-three, he gave us a plane to take all the supplies over.”

Trump is mentally ill! Tuesday’s marathon news conference by nonpartisan White House physician Ronny Jackson, M.D. defanged author Michael Wolff’s claim that Trump is one Twitter storm away from being wheeled off in a straightjacket. On Trump’s insistence, Dr. Jackson administered the Montreal Cognitive Assessment. Trump scored a perfect 30 out of 30.

“The President is mentally very, very sharp; very intact,” said Jackson, a U.S. Navy Rear Admiral.

One year into the Trump/GOP Era, everyday Americans are better off than they were when Obama left town. Washington Democrats? Not so much.

Deroy Murdock is a Manhattan-based Fox News Contributor and a contributing editor with National Review Online.

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